There is only one part of my 1994 project that is actually taking flight.Just one part of my life, that easily transcends 25 years back, and I would be able to write about in my 1994 series.

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Everything else that happened is just untranslatable.

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I can’t share that I ve decided to go out into the world under my real name, starting with an entirely new Bon Jovi YouTube series.The only filming we did in 1994, was with a camera that had videotapes in them. And we were unlikely to share it with anyone we did not already know.

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I also cannot tell how I found the bestest job in the history of being LS Harteveld. A job opening which has excited me to the level of Jon Bon Jovi funding my life on the condition that I only do whatever the fuck I want, every day, for the rest of my life.And if that means I will do him, that would be great. But if not he’ll still be my biggest fan.That would be like the Next Best Thing, to finding this job.But it is so tied to modern culture that I have not found a way to translate it to 1994.

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And in this 1994 series, which really feels like ages since last time I wrote for it, I also cannot tell that in order to apply for this job I am supposed to clean up all my blogs at least to some degree, in order to apply.And also, the absolute daunting task awaited me, of going through both of the YouTube channels (the description boxes) to clean them up, take out any cross-referencing from my secret pen name to my real name, take out all services that I no longer offer, websites that I no longer support and social media accounts that have changed.And remove everything that I don’t want biting me in the ass, when I m visible or famous under my real name.Nor did I want anything online which I did not 100% stood by, the moment I was sending out the most important application of my life.

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And – and! – Sara, you are not going to believe this;I can also not work into my 1994 series that YouTube then did the stuff nightmares are made of:It.
Unedited.
My.
Videos.

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Five years of work, trimmed endings, cut monologues, ringing doorbells and bare bellies from tops that exposed me;All online.And that’s just the stuff under my real name.God knows what I edited from my more candid LS Harteveld channel.That channel could have an atomic bomb of bloopers, that could blow up any career, let alone the carefully crafted public image I was creating under my real name.

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But the good news is that the unexpected YouTube fail left me no choice but to simply take down all 500 videos on my two channels, only leaving a goodbye video on my LS Harteveld channel, and the three videos I had shot for my new series under my real name.It cost me four hours of intense anxiety and full-blown panic on a Monday night.It saved me days and days of editing description boxes and a guilt trip towards my audience for every video I removed.A simple apology on both my channels, explaining what had happened and why I removed the videos, was all it took.I think I owe YouTube a big Thank You.

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So all these major life events, the decision to become known under my real name, starting a new video series, finding the perfect job opening, and my adventures with my YouTube channel and the blessing that turned out to be, colored the past two weeks.Yet I did not write anything for the only series that I hold in the highest regard, and that I consider the most pure version of me:1994.Where I translate my life into a fictionalized past.

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22 Year old Lauren had not moved a finger, in the area of work nor her writing.

And there was really only one aspect where I knew what she had been up to:She had fallen in love with Michael Douglas.

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She had no idea why she had managed to miss him, when she had seen Basic Instinct at the theater, but she had.And now that she owned a videotape of Basic Instinct, she just couldn’t take her eyes off of him.She was spellbound by his strong, macho on-screen presence. And she was sure the magic was in his voice. The way he said: “What the fuck do you want from me Catherine?” while looking straight into Sharon Stone’s eyes, up close, sparked a deep longing in her to be with a man again.
To have a man asking her that question, in an almost bored, definitely not impressed with her, way.

.Maybe her ex-lover Bear would?
She still thought almost exclusively about him. Even though he seemed to have really left.
But maybe it would be someone else, someone new who would come into her life and possess that same kind of distant cool, that made her feel safe.

Whoever it was, she would recognize him if she saw him.
She was sure of it.

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And he, would recognize her.

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~LaurenAn unexamined life is not worth living

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Aside from the occasional letter to Sara, this is blog is the home for my1994 diary where I translate current day events to my 22 year old self in February 1995.
The subscription button is on this page, probably on the right.

I ll admit it:Technically, this is not the YouTube channel that I should be cancelling.Not the one under this name.

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Just like technically it are not the posts on this blog, that I should be clearing out.Nor my original blog.Nor my Dutch blog.And yet, that is exactly what I will do.

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I will basically decimate my online presence as LS Harteveld, because I have chosen to become known/ active under my real name.I m finally speaking my truth there.
Don’t get me wrong, it is far from the transparency I have had as LS Harteveld, from 2006 and up; But that is exactly why it is manageable.Why I don’t break into a cold sweat at the idea of someone asking me questions about it, having to explain myself, or even selling my work.

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Under my real name, my work is genuine enough to be a considered a part of me. But it is impersonal and general enough, to not have the same emotional value, as my work as LS Harteveld.At least, it won’t once I ve cleared 80% of my blog and YouTube there as well – because that’s what I will do.

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The past few months, I am noticing that people become obsessed with me way too easily. This doesn’t have anything to do with my blogs nor my YouTube:Often they don’t even know I have those.

It has been that way since I was very young, and I suspect all women experience this. But I find the emotional harassment from men I barely know, unbearable.

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Just tonight I was unlocking my bike, in the city, and someone stopped his bike right behind me, and forced me to have a conversation with him and wanted to get to know me, which of course I refused.
But it WAS the moment when I decided enough was enough.
That I was going to delete my LS Harteveld YouTube channel so that my face would never be known again under that name.

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I started writing as LS Harteveld in 2006, and it has been so nessecary for me, to cope with life this way.
Writing is my sanctuary.
And I m proud of the books I created in 2017, and look forward to curating all the material I still have and create new ones.

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But in the upcoming years my face and my work will also become known under my real name. And that is the moment when it becomes very inconvenient that my candid LS Harteveld videos exist.
Especially because I will be writing here, and needing this place here, more than ever.

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The blog you re reading right now, has my 1994 project on it, where I fictionalize real life events to a 22 year old Lauren, who wants to be a writer.And I also write letters to my creativity coach Sara here.You can follow this blog by subscribing on this page.

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Next to that, I have my original blog.The reason I started using that, is that it doesn’t give out email notifications!This allows me to write things I want to share on social media, but that I don’t consider my core work.
So if you want to read this extra work, you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter

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Like I said I expect to write a lot. More than ever before. I think my adventures in the real world will really stir my creativity, although I will never write about my payroll job/ work environment where I m not a speaker or writer.

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So I can no longer afford the candid conversations I ve been having on YouTube.

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Today I was covering a song/ video in a series I m currently doing on YouTube, and I will make a new final video explaining why this brought me to this decision, but the short version is:The topic I wanted to cover, and which I had actually announced the previous day, suddenly struck me as very unwise to openly discuss.
After a week, rich in drawing unwanted attention to myself, the last thing I wanted to do was put oil to the flame.
And all I did want to do, was pull the plug.

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So I will.

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Just like in 2010 when I first came online, all photos of me, all videos, will be removed. And the LS Harteveld blog you are on right now – will become a sanctuary where I can be myself and share my best work.
For ever.

I know our call is over a week away, but I m ready to call it a day.
The upcoming week will not bring any dramatic change, nor a massive production of blog posts, because I m kind of… I don’t know.Done?
I know who I am, I know what I want, and the days of changing direction or wasting time are behind me.

..

Another reason I have found myself toying with the idea to write you this weekend already, is because I have no intention of holding on to the ins and outs as to how I got here.And as soon as I try to explain it, it rapidly turns into this boring list of all the blog posts I wrote that shaped my mind. I think I m close to 10 including several written under my real name, all written in the past 2 weeks.I didn’t just write, I also worked and did other things.

And yet all in all, the past two weeks felt intensely alone. Not lonely.

.First I assumed it was my obsession with January 1st, that I just wanted to start the decade off by myself. But then it became the second of January, third. And nothing changed. I would go to the movies, theater, see friends even. But it was almost like I made sure it didn’t impact me as much as it usually does. I could feel that although I wished I had started the year fresh;
I still had things to figure out.
There was still “life clutter”.
2020 Had not started as clear and purposeful as I had hoped.

December with my lover breaking up and almost daily social appointments, had been hard on me. This year solitude and writing were the only thing I longed for.To figure things out, and let go what was no longer needed.The good news was it worked.

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Last week I saw how all the major aspects of my life, and how I want them in the future, had stayed partially clouded (although for many of them I was on the right path for sure!) because I had failed to see one thing.Or maybe I had seen it, but I had failed to see the consequence:THAT I AM A WRITER
Or artist, in a broader sense.I honestly have no idea how I let’s say “managed to miss that”, because the signs have been all over my two author names, five different blogs, ten published books and material for the next ten already done, but I thought that being a writer, publisher, artist, was somehow something that could be:– negotiated– parked– downplayed– bargainedAnd even:– erased– denied– ran away from

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Yet through the lens of:
“Honey, you’re a writer, you need ample time to process all those times you look for the meaning of Life behind every man you meet (that’s not true, just my lover and the man who looks like Slash), every guitar hero whose biography you read (also not true; just Slash) and every movie you see (probably just everything featuring Adam Driver or other gorgeous men with dark hair).You re a writer and it’s going to cost you your life.Get used to it.”
In that light it’s obvious my writing doesn’t budge.

Every time I panicked over something – being someone’s mistress, writing about my sex life to name just a few – it was just because I failed to understand:I AM a writer.That’s what I DO.It’s not a “I m a writer unless I m in love with you, and you don’t want me to write, then I m not a writer.”It’s not:“I m a writer unless you want me to really get my head around this new job and go head first into this new world making new friends and giving me a new identity because then I ll be that.”I m a writer period. It’s not an app that you can remove from your phone.

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The first areas where this fact, obligation, curse and blessing of being a writer started to sink in were my love life and work. I now know that as much as I would agree that it’s not ethical to write about your sex life, it’s not something I can change any more than the color of my eyes.As much as I would love to have my life free to jump head-first into a new career: I am a writer already and I publish my own books.End of story.

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But there was one area where it took a bit longer.And I think it was this epiphany that needed the solitude of the first weeks of 2020 before it could come out.Teaching yoga.

The area I had been on the fence about since summer 2018

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As you know I have unpaid work with male co-workers, and it’s very practical work. And at the same time I ve pretty much called off all my friendships, and currently no longer hold any steady arrangements of seeing people.My preferred method of socializing from this year forward, will be through work in a male-dominated, practical environment.

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Together with the realization that I AM A WRITER this quickly led to the realization that there is no place for teaching yoga in my life. That I want to spend my working hours among men, and my time off behind my desk writing or working on my own publishing business.Ideally I want to make a full income selling my own books, and work a job 3-4 days a week, including my current unpaid work.

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I kept all the other things that had to do with the yoga studio. The space, my class teaching friends, my own yoga practice. I write for my Rock Star Yoga blog.I still see myself as someone who has something to say on yoga, just not teaching it.Becoming an (albeit antagonistic) spokesperson in the yoga world will still happen.

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So after two weeks it’s finally done, all the internal processing and seeing where I will be taking my life. I’m updating all my websites and profiles, and will update my resume so that it reflects that I am a writer and a publisher. No longer a yoga teacher.

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One of the movies that influenced my decision was Words of Love on Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne Ihlen. It didn’t take long for me to recognize myself in Leonard.In the poor deal he could cut her, where it was practically impossible for him to give even a little bit of himself to her, I recognized the state of affairs in my own love life.

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It’s not that I don’t think a man doesn’t deserve safety, warmth, predictability, stability, monogamy, a future. It’s just that I can’t give those things.

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And all I can offer are words of love.

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~LaurenAn unexamined life is not worth living

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Aside from the occasional letter to Sara, this is blog is the home for my1994 diary where I translate current day events to my 22 year old self in January 1995.
The subscription button is on this page, probably on the right.

{ it was really hard for me to write this post. It’s the result of four days of deep thinking, a lot of crying, studying, and fortunately I had three friends who all took me out. Which was a blessing.
But I got this one on paper and never looked back. May contain more mistakes than usual. Feel free to not read it. }

This is not going to be an easy read.
If you re one of those people who believe autism was, is, or ever has been, an objectively identifiable disorder, where the people with whom you felt disconnected in conversations were the only “real” autistic people?
Do yourself a favor and stop reading.
If you re one of those people who thinks it is inappropriate that I study autism in order to understand and heal myself, in the months I have to wait for help?
And would rather see me waiting patiently until “a doctor” comes and determines if I “have autism” or not?
Don’t ever say that to me in person.
And also stop reading.
I wouldn’t want to be the one who makes you lose your faith in the Holy Church of Mental Health.
And I do believe everybody is entitled to their opinion about autism. Although it is exactly this widespread incomplete view of what autism is, where public opinion is that autism in an individual problem, to be solved by the autistic, that is resulting in my high levels of stress.
But like I said:
You’re entitled to your opinion.
Just stop reading.
But to me the “But you’re not sure it is autism, right?” makes it impossible to have an open conversation about why I believe the answer to the problems I have been experiencing the last few years lies in neurodiversity.
Neurodiversity is a neutral label that sees all autistic, ADHD, ADD brains as healthy, and natural variations. And it puts into perspective the “special needs” and limitations of autistics, by stating that all humans have needs.
It’s just that society is directed to the needs of the majority.
And also all people have limitations AND are dependent on other people.
It’s just that for autistics we blame their limitations and dependency on their “condition” and for non-autistics we call it:
Being human.
Needless to say, this entire discussion also goes for physical disabilities as well:
Your level of disability is not related to what you can or cannot do. But to what you can or cannot do, compared to those around you.
In the same way being poor is not related to what the average income worldwide is, but to what your neighbor is spending.
All problems and conditions are contextual.
If all children were born disabled, then from a social perspective, none of them would be disabled. There would be plenty of ways and practical solutions to make everybody participate in society.
It is important to acknowledge the social perspective is much stronger in the way we see mental or physical disability; than the medical perspective.
In my opinion the reason we keep changing the DSM is not because we know more about the disease in the pathological sense, but because society changes and therefor what we see as unwanted behavior changes.
That the definition of autism has broadened since the DSM, causing many more people to be diagnosed, is therefor in my opinion, valid:
It is valid not because there is something medically wrong with all these new “patients”; But because society has become increasingly intolerant towards atypical social behavior.
The neurotypical demands in order to be successful in society have increased. Meaning that even for a normal job and running an average household in the way nobody gets hurt and everybody is taken care of, a skill set and also an interest and a motivation is needed, that greatly exceeds what most of us are capable of.
Us means everybody.
These are the “normal” limitations I was talking about.
But what happens from an autistic perspective is even worse.
Because the higher demands cause a higher need for social interaction. There is a constant need for staying in touch, in tune, with each other, in order to let things go smoothly.
And this is exactly where the autistic, I woudl say “struggles” but that’s not the right word. Among autistics the accuracy of communication equals those among normal, or neurotypical people.
Both groups understand each other perfectly, within the same group.
It’s when the autistics and normal people have to communicate with each other, that communication suffers. With the normal people being the majority everywhere but the IT department?
And with society meanwhile moving forward at dazzling pace?
Autistics are thrown off the wagon left right and center. Except from the IT department.
I have been a yogateacher for 15 years, and part of the reason I am sick, is because that profession, in particular in a crowded market place which yoga has become, requires an exceptional set of neurotypical skills.
Your people skills need to be impeccable in order for your yoga studio to thrive.
Mine weren’t. I have no intrinsic interest in small talk.
Yesterday I went to see Maleficent 2, in which Maleficent practices small talk. Without showing her fangs, also.
She has to go to a dinner with the king and queen, her future son-in-law, but despite the preparation things get awkward right off the bat, because she really can’t do small talk.
“I take it you had no trouble finding the castle?” the King asks.
She stares at him: “Why would I have any trouble finding the castle?”
To me the social demands of teaching yoga felt like constantly finding creative ways to ask (not even answer) the question:
“I take it you had no trouble finding the castle?”
I was so good at it, I think if an autistic tried to take my classes he might not have recognized me as one of them (which they do now!).
But it wasn’t just the social conversation that made me ultimately unsuccessful and unsatisfied teaching it.
My involvement in yoga was never rooted in the same needs or interest as my fellow teachers had. Nor was it similar to the desire of people who are looking for a yoga class.
Right now, I still teach to friends. And even the final years of my studio things had settled and classes were pleasant for everybody.
But especially the first ten years, I practically erased who I was, so I could teach. I was playing I was a yoga teacher. When I was not a yoga teacher.
I was an autistic.
I know this word autistic and the blunt way I say this will bring shivers down the spines of many, but that’s the whole problem here. That’s why the diagnoses is making me sick.
Because the word autism is so triggering, loaded, political even.
Not to the people who are now fighting for our human rights as autistics, for the depathologization of what we have, and who are offering the neutral term NeuroDiversity instead.
But to the people who think of their autistic sibling, which will be dependent on their help for the rest of their life.
To the people who have worked in health care in the 70s and 80s, or who have simply grown up in this era where there were no people with autism that didn’t diagnose as odd or strange, from the outside.
The earliest diagnosis of what has been called Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning for of autism, were late 80s, but it was based on research Hans Asperger had done in the 30s.
Asperger syndrome went on to become a household diagnosis for about a quarter century.
In 2011 Asperger’s was dropped from the DSM in favor of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASS); A disorder with a set of characteristics on which the patient could each have an independent score.
“If you know one autistic, you know one autistic.”
Is a phrase often used to describe how varied the spectrum is.
An autistic could be funny and therefor in connection with the world around them, yet communicating through a voice computer because he or she can’t speak.
Lots of autistics are social, and when they’re not mute, they can easily become unrecognizable as being autistic. This has lead to a counter movement that wants to work with a more strict diagnostic tool, and not the loose settings it has now. It is against pathologizing these sometimes called “high-functioning” autistics, and basically advocates going back to the stricter pre-80s definition.
The time between Hans Asperger’s research, and the 80s when it was brushed off and the new group of children was brought in, and labeled Asperger’s.
So there is a “medical model movement” who thinks it’s time to go back to the 70s.
There is the neurodiversity movement, who wants to drop stigma of all neurological conditions and promotes acceptance within society of what we now call autism (in all its forms), ADHD or ADD.
There are The People Formerly Known As Aspergers, who have been “brought up” with the idea that their condition is something completely different, and that they can have a place in society. As opposed to people with autism.
This is why Aspergers have been called Super Autistics: they used to have sort of an elite status. The good news is that it has worked, in the sense that you can see that these people have become the most successful of the bunch.
They are proof that if you tell people:
“What you have could work out great if you play your cards right,” it just might.
The price of this was that those with Asperger Syndrom who have not been able to become financially independent (usually because their interest was not building their own computers) could suffer from feeling they underachieved.
But even in everyday language, an Asperger’s diagnoses almost equals “nothing wrong”. If I had said to people:
“I think I might have Asperger’s”
No one would have drawn back in shock and have asked:
“Noooo! But really? I mean, you re not sure right?”
Asperger’s was no biggie, was the word on the street.
But now that the diagnosis Asperger’s no longer exists, and the “high-functioning” autistics formerly known as Asperger’s are closing the ranks with their fellow autistics, including the non-speakers?
The tables have turned.
“We”, the “high-functioning” autistics who refuse to give themselves the more likable, less political label “Asperger’s” in order to be accepted and successful-
we are now in the line of fire.
The normal people want us (the autistics they like hanging out with) to stop calling ourselves autistics, because it makes them freak out.
The psychologists want to stop diagnosing us as autistics, because they feel the latest version of the DSM contains a watered down definition.
The therapists and lineages within psychology who are convinced we are ill and disturbed and that the neurodiversity people are delusional and that we, modern day mutants, need to be cured?
They don’t want us smart sassy badass autistics “in there” (the pool of autistics) either, because we are not going down without a fight and we are the ones defying their paradigm and ultimately… ultimately….
Suffice to say I understand why 50% of the X-Men can no longer be bothered defending hostile humanity who has done them nothing but harm, and chose to be villains instead.
If I had the energy for this, I would become a neurodiversity fighter!
But I am absolutely exhausted, from doing all my autism research. I tried to find the truth, and the key take-aways for autistic people.
And I found those too.
A lovely community where we understand each other.
But just like The Moren where Maleficent lives, it is under threat. Which makes everyone who wants to live there under threat.
The thought of being under siege just because I have a medical diagnosis that is so political, is what is wearing me out. I just can’t go on.
Not because I think I m not autistic.
But because it opens such a can of social injustice, it would be a life’s work straightening that out.
I myself am developing anxiety around the word autism, when I was entirely neutral a few months ago. I was even very happy that, together with a few specialists who helped me figuring out a starting point, autism had surfaced as most likely explanation.
I was convinced it would be helping me so very much to investigate this further.
Instead it sucked me into a warzone.
Just a few months ago, I though I was suffering from burnout and a midlife crisis, and now I realize I have the choice between getting proper diagnosis, and with that the chances of the best treatment;
Or refusing diagnosis and stay out of the battle and limit my access to services.
The word autism is so triggering to everybody. I m already losing friends not because I have autism, but because I write about my process.
I lose about one friend a month.
And I m already decreasing my chances on the workplace because I openly share undiscovered autism as part of my explanation why I have stopped my studio.
This is important:
To me – an undiagnosed autistic- telling the truth is extremely important.
The neurotypical or normal desire that I please stop writing about my mental health and “not wake the dogs” “until it is certain”, is so incredibly sad to me.
I understand it.
They want protect me from the bad in this world.
From the people who would judge me for my autism.
But they are like people who are telling you you shouldn’t wear short skirts because there are bad people in the world.
That’s why I lose so many friends. Among other reasons.
But because I can ONLY be open and honest? This leaves me no choice but to erase the entire option of getting an autism diagnosis altogether. The only way to ignore I m autistic, is by reprogramming my own mind. Forget I have it, and honestly say, share, admit:“Yes, I toyed with the thought of getting my diagnoses during a difficult period of my life. But I didn’t.”
That’s all I can afford.
Popular opinion will remain, at least for a few more decades, that “real” autism is something you can notice and that should be prevented. When in reality, autism could not be seen it at least 50% of the cases.
Right from the start.
Hans Asperger studied two groups of children. Two types.
The second group (in the article I read they were called group B) were notably different. What they said didn’t make sense (to Hans) and they were not particularly intelligent or gifted (to Hans).
They were in their own little world and it was unclear what they were doing there (to Hans).
But the first group were boys, in the research they were called group A, were highly intelligent. They constantly got into trouble at school and with their parents, because they were simply a lot smarter than everybody else.
Their disconnection from the world around them was so they could stay in their own little world and come up with bright and original ideas.
And occasionally they would come out, just to gaslight Hans.
“Why do you do that?!” he would yell.
And the Group B boy, the little professors as Hans called them, would smile and say:
“I do it, because you re so funny when you freak out over it.”
Both Group A and Group B had what we now call autism. And what Hans called autism right then, from the start. The capacity from half of all people with autism to gaslight the people who study them, because they are a lot smarter, has been there in the 30s.
And it still is there today.
Because ultimately disorders are not a medical; They are social.
Both the ones living in their own world without us knowing why, as well as the ones encountering severe problems in the real world, but occasionally coming out to tease them:
We are all autistic people.
And we are allowed to present ourselves as such.
But the past few months have been absolutely horrific to me, from a personal perspective. Like I said, every time I write about my mental health and autism, I lose friends, and relationships become tensed because I refuse help in the form of pity. Just like those little professors I don’t want any help. I want to talk about common interests and have fun.
Just like those little boys, I am fighting for my independence.
And the moment I go into testing and put my faith in psychology to help me, I will get That Label Everybody Dreads.
And if I don’t want the label, but do want to appear if I comply. I would probably be able to come out clean and unautistic. It would feel like a fun challenge, to come out as unautistic.
Just like those little boys who had fun in ruining Hans Asperger’s testing results.
Some say the reason the definition of autism has become watered down, is because high intelligence has the same traits as autism/ Asperger. And there has not been done any research that can separate the two.
In that sense the neurodiversity movement should really go all in, and include highly intelligent from the start, as a neurological variation just like all the others.
But it will be without me.
I will stay with the few friends I have left, and rebuild my life without ever knowing want went wrong. And playing with them, in the way we always have.
By creating fantasy worlds.
Creating our own language.
And using film quotes in casual conversation.
And I will propose a new greeting to them. And I encourage you to try out how this would feel for you. It’s the one I took from Maleficent.
How about every time you meet a good friend, one of you says:
“I take it you didn’t have any problem finding the castle?”
And the other raises his or her eyebrows, and offers a puzzled smile:
“Why would I have any trouble finding the castle?”
That would be a world worth living in.

post:
My Year with Kat – How one woman can change your business and your LIFE. For free.

If I have regrets it’s that I didn’t know Kat Loterzo 18 months earlier, which was when I first stepped onto the marketing path.But maybe all those other freebies, coaches, paid programs, books, and spending hundreds of euros on Facebook and Google ads were necessary to truly appreciate Kat.
Maybe it really takes throwing away one and a half year of your life, and wasting a king’s ransom rebranding your yoga studio, with marginal results – zero if you compare it to the costs I made to get those results – before you listen to the message of someone as LOUD AND OUTSPOKEN as Kat Loterzo. Who says it comes down to one thing.And one thing only;You being YOU.A message so radically different than anything that calls itself marketing, no one will believe it.Not unless you have hit rock bottom and learned the hard way that being the good girl, doing your studying, mapping out your packages, and knowing your ideal clients “better than they know themselves” (I m not making this up!) – that all those things are going to do absolutely nothing for you.Let me type that again, Kat style!Ab.So.Lute.Ly.NOTHING!That it will only result in the way I spent last year’s holidays, decluttering my expanding collection of marketing materials. I almost overlooked the few things I had in there from a new coach. Kat Loterzo. Or Katrina Ruth, which is her new name. She rebranded herself about a month ago. This new coach Kat Loterzo, was just a few A4s in my marketing folder. And at that time she was so new, I didn’t feel I had to make a decision on her.So I stored them, and more or less forgot about it until I watched a two hour YouTube video called 2017 Manifestation TrainingAnd I was mesmerized.
In retrospect it was the moment I fell in love with her. Although unwittingly.
One year after giving her my email address, and the Christmas sorting my marketing materials, I can now see how important she has been this year.
And that I ll spend this Christmas confidently clearing out the entire marketing folder, except the material I got from her.Unsubscribing for all newsletters and leaving all communities, excepts hers.And Kat will change your life too, before the year is over if:1. you start feeling rebellious the moment someone tells you something should be done a certain way in order for it to work2. you either have your own business or you would love to have one3. you know which activities light you up from the insideIf you score three out of three (no cheating!), then Kat is your woman.You can join her Facebook page here, or subscribe to her YouTubeLast week I made a few important decisions.
To focus on yoga, to write for yoga, to message for yoga, to make a living out of yoga, and to keep my LS Harteveld writing as a hobby. And had the two most focused, and satisfying weeks of the year. And two clients returning to me.But it’s not the money that was coming in that made me so happy.Kat was allowing me to be me. To listen to my heart and to speak my true message. I could feel that energy flowing through me.Needing little sleep.Being fully confident.Then something incredibly sad happened in her Inner Circle. She posted a video about it, as she always shares what’s going on in her life. It was about someone I didn’t know, but I felt for her. She gave us an account, so we could donate money for a gift, if we felt inclined to do so.I hesitated.It was not someone I knew and I didn’t have a budget for expenses like this.Then I said to myself; “If I get a new client, before the day is over, I m going to donate to this gift Kat wants to buy for their friend.”I wrote three different blogposts and hustled my ass off.When I came home from teaching I found an email from yet another returning customer, taking me up on the offer for the yoga studio.I just wired the money to Kat.She earned it.

Well, obviously it’s not really my first sales page, right?I mean, even knowing that word illustrates that I ve been around the business block, but still!I have never written a sales page under this name, because LS Harteveld sells books.Not services.Until now, anyway!And I ve made an extremely daring choice here..
But it’s a fair one.Even though my books are mainly read by men, my entrepreneur friends are mostly men, AND I ve spent the last 15 years bathing in masculine energy teaching yoga.
Oh, I m kidding, that was mostly women 🙂But I’m only working with women for my coaching service.So I m aware that women are a minority within my reading audience.
My estimate is one out of ten readers is female, and that’s probably overestimating.But maybe in a way, that’s the whole point.With men I already share my mind, through my writing.But with women I share my soul.

~LaurenPS: there is a unisex “subscribe to this blog” button on this page! 😉

Work with me

Okay, okay, okay.Before we begin, can I confess the biggest mistake I ve made this year?I mean it was SO big, that I’m almost like:“If people find out about this, they will NEVER book me!Not ever!Not a chance!”Can we talk about this, before I bring in all the bells and whistles?I.Forgot.My.
Purpose.My message. The very reason I m here on this earth.Gone!
The whole thing!Me. The yoga teacher who stopped teaching yoga because she thought yoga should come AFTER we had a talk about how life is going.
AFTER we asses if yoga is really what you need.
Oh by the way, by now? I m convinced yoga is NEVER what you need.You need to write a blog post with screaming capitals in every sentence.That’s a need.But yoga?No.
So I basically abandoned the profession of teaching yoga because I thought purpose should always come before yoga, or before wanting to solve any other problem, or before improving your happiness by relaxing or whatever;
Purpose should always come first.
“I m leaving yoga!”
* walks out and slams the door*
And then I forgot my own purpose.The very moment I was healed from losing a year to burnout-ish complaints, I dropped my purpose, my mission, and my message like a hot potato.
I had lost 2018 to:
– a renovation which pulled me offtrack way more than I had anticipated.
– my cat dying and didn’t want to get a new one (yet) for several reasons;
– subtle but significant changes in my love life;
– I lost my yoga business;So what did I do when I picked up the pieces to start a normal work life again?
I DROPPED, THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE!
The thing I had managed to hold on to, despite all the turmoil;
Maybe I didn’t even drop it, but hid it somewhere under the bushes of a headhunter site. In the trashcan of LinkedIn.
Or maybe I hid it in that box with clothes size 6 and 8.
That would be symbolic right?
The One Day Box.
Yes, that’s the most likely place where my purpose would fit in just fine, and I could visit it once a year or so, only to conclude that it still didn’t fit me.
“Oh well! Better luck next year!”
And I would fold Purpose neatly between my 1998 Marlène Dietrich pants and 2005 French designer jeans.
Last week I had already discussed “purpose” with my creativity coach. I told her that although I have (had) a banner on my website “You must wake up and find your purpose!”; I really didn’t see myself as having a message.
But if I had a fixed message, finding purpose would be it.
“I’m a real artist, Sara” I told my coach.”My message is different every day.”
That night I told the story to a friend who’s been very persistent I should be sharing my message. She reacted very confused when I told her I didn’t have one. And that if I did, it would be the one about finding purpose.
So I asked her: “Well what do you think my message is then?”
“The Mistress one, obviously!” she answered immediately.
Oh yeah.
The Mistress one.
I honestly can’t say I responded very positively towards this. As far as I was concerned people would never hear about the Mistress again.
I mean sure; There’ll be a book release in April. Big Mistress.
But honest to God, if people wanted to get disappointed in regular relationships? Be my guest. I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck, and have them project their anger on me.
But my friend was not that easily swayed.
“It’s just SO good to hear someone speak about things that no one dares to speak about!” she exclaimed. “You do that!”
I used to, yes.
Yet I went home thinking I was very okay staying silent.
But today I know:
She was right.
The Mistress message IS what I am here to do, to share. The knowledge that I have acquired in my four years of being a mistress, has given me the ability to help others. Usually by refinding their purpose, but also with relationship problems.
And none of them were mistresses themselves.
So that’s why today, I decided to get behind my computer and create this page, where you can work with me.
As far as coaching goes, I don’t sell packages, nor work with assignments. I m a spur-of-moment kind of girl.
I have a business degree, and I ve been an entrepreneur for 15 years first as a yoga teacher and now as a writer, coach and speaker. I work mostly based on mindset work, which I have been studying since 1998.
You can read about the principles of my Mistress work, and also how it applies to business and life in this blog post from December 2018:Vogue (The core values of a mistress)
And rereading that I realize all too well, that even selling this service is already against the way I defined my core values at the time. Back then, freedom to me meant not selling my time.
But last week I had the epiphany, that wasn’t really true:
That my biggest sacrifice was not selling time itself; it was selling time being outside the house. Or more specifically; selling my presence.
Ever since 2014 I ve had this idol, an escort Avery Moore. She was charging $1000 an hour, and I always wondered why that felt like a totally fair price to me. And without the sex even! I was also amused at how strict she was with her screening: You had to give her all your information, and the name of the company you worked for. She would run a background check before you met.
Rightfully so!
“If you think about it, $1000 an hour is a fair price, don’t you think?” I said to the friend who had been so kind to remind me of my purpose.
It’s how much everyone should charge, if paid to be present.

The Bells and The Whistles That Will Make You Want Me

Oh come on! Bells and whistles… lol As if that’s ever going to work!But I can give you a little background story.In 2006 I left my long-term relationship, in order to fall in love and have an exciting love life again.I could really see myself end up having multiple lovers, I had no idea where my desire for sexual excitement would stop!It turned out: Pretty quickly.I was extremely picky. I ve had sex with ten men in eight years, and the sex (fact) was always good to great. But the whole thing outside the bed….oh, dear.It’s unbelievable how many aspects of someone you have to ignore, if you’re not totally in love. And even the times I was in love, it was so challenging, the entire interaction around it. And likewise, I guess. They must have gotten annoyed by me as well.So I was a major fluke at being a single, and had multiple years where I didn’t bother to have sex at all. Yet, when I accidentally became a mistress, I was the one most surprised that the relationship form suited me so flawlessly.Being someone’s secret mistress was exciting and challenging, but in a nice way because it made me incredibly strong. It felt like learning how to play poker and it gave me this mysterious aura. Which I cherished because I m so open about everything. Finally, I was my own Woman of Mystery.Writing this, March 2019, I don’t know if we’re still “on”.Things have been difficult, it seems his mind is somewhere else, and I know it’s entirely pointless to “try” to win him back, or at least win his attention back.The most important thing I ve learned as a mistress is that it always pays off to not manipulate anything, trust the process, and focus on your own thing. Your own purpose.And not on him.

So I m at the end of this post.If you want to follow my Mistress work, you can subscribe to this blog (button somewhere on this page);
Follow on Facebook or Twitter,YouTubeAll my books can be found on this page.Are you a female entrepreneur, avid writer or powerful woman? And are you interested getting clarity on your message, your purpose or learn the Mistress lifestyle?
I have a limited number of coaching spots available.
You can find my introduction fees below.
Appearances for conventions and media start at €1000
Yeah…. the “presence” thing!

~Lauren

Coaching (women only)

application

write a short email to info@lsharteveld,
how I can help you.
If it appeals to you, let yourself be inspired by the question: “If I can be, do or have anything I want, who would I be?”If you live in another timezone, please let me know where you are, and at which times you could make it for our call. (I’m on Amsterdam-time, CET)
Then I can check my schedule.

If you want the maximum out of our time together, consider writing me an email before every session, on how your week went! Or keep a daily log, and send it before our sessions.

Conventions and presentations (business only)

Mail your request, with as much background information on the occasion and the audience as possible, to info@lsharteveld.nl, and let’s see if we can make this work.Prices for professional appearances start at €1000

I had one important boyfriend when I was a teen. He was the only one with whom I dated, and was madly in love with at the same time.
He broke my heart of course.
But what a fair price to pay. In total I had three boyfriends during my teens. The first was really attractive, artistic and sensitive. But we were both so confused that everything we did always had this sense of not being connected. I still run into him occasionally, and we definitely still like each other. But it’s more curiosity, like between alien species. It’s a miracle no one got hurt, or at least not that badly. Because we possessed very little skills to communicate with each other or to put each other at ease. And a high need for it. My third boyfriend in my teens was the sensible choice. Someone who liked me a lot, and who was a few years older than I was. He was my ticket to an adult life, offering me the privacy of his own home, with cats, home cooked meals and the obvious offer to finally get my sex life up and running. I had more than had it with being a virgin and was aware one night stands were never going to do it for me. My body just shut down. And after oral sex with my first two boyfriends, just having oral wasn’t on my bucket list anymore. I needed to ditch that virginity, period! So my choice for a good boyfriend who had a little love nest of his own, was a calculated one. Fortunately I ve always been good at math, and it turned out to be exactly what I needed. I lost my virginity and we had a lovely drama-free relationship for three years. Although I skillfully ignored his views for the future were a lot more domestic than mine were. I tried to end it once, but I was consumed with guilt. Ultimately I ended it when I was in love with someone else. That was the man I stayed with for 14 years. But that was when I was 20, so that’s not my teens anymore. In my teens there were three:
The first artistic boyfriend; The third common sense boyfriend; And in between there was THE boyfriend. Whenever I write about him I call him Jonathan. But this was not because he looked like Jon Bongiovi. I had not even realized he looked like my idol until I bought a ticket to this summer’s Bon Jovi concert. I wanted to know how many years it had been since that first concert and went through my old diaries. Found the ticket; The concert had been late 1988.
And that’s when it hit me.
I had written about Jonathan so much, I knew the date him and me had met by heart. It was on a party. I had gone through these early beginnings with Jonathan multiple times. Yet what I had failed to realize was what had preceded that! Even when we were dating I had considered Jonathan out of my league. He was attending a much fancier school than I was. A higher form of education, and the parents had a higher income too. I settled for assuming I was new and fresh, and perhaps he’d already had all the girls he wanted at his own school. I wasn’t complaining, but I felt lucky.
Not a single cell in me believed he would actually fall in love with me, the way I had with him. I still consider that true. So anyway, there was all that – the popular guy dates alternative girl and he breaks her heart – but it wasn’t until I retrieved that concert ticket that I realized he had looked exactly like Jon Bongiovi! He was perhaps (and I m definitely taking a risk here!) even more attractive than Jon Bongiovi, because Jonathan was a bit rougher. I usually compared his beauty to John Malcovich’s; Unorthodox and dangerous. But he also had some serious heartthrob qualities; Green eyes and an incredible head of hair. Wavy dark blond curls, shoulder length. He didn’t even use any hair products, this was all natural. And he was tall, but not too tall. Not yet anyway. I encountered him later and boys can keep growing until they are 21 or something. And he had. So I had caught him when he was a only two inches or so taller, and not that muscular yet either. He had been absolutely perfect and far less intimidating than later on, when the combination of brains, body and charisma made him almost devilish. He could still crack my heart open like a walnut, but his strong presence would have warned me by now. Yet when I “caught” Jonathan there were an insane amount of terribly cute things to be loved. He drew flowers on the back of his letters. He wrote me songs on his guitar. He was insanely romantic. God I was toast for sure. Anyway, finding the concert ticket explained to me WHY Jonathan had been in my life. Or at least it offered an explanation other than that he had ran out of girls at his college. The first was that he looked just like Jon Bongiovi, who had been my idol for 2 years by then. I was used to looking at that face. Familiar with being up close and personal through clippings, posters, videos, interviews on MTV. Jon Bongiovi was the first idol I bought pricey American magazines for, because I hang on every word he said. If it had not been for this familiarity to Jon Bongiovi, I would not have been able to stand the heat with Jonathan. The smallest thing would have made me doubt myself (even more). I would never have had the balls to pursue someone of such can I say “descent” if it had not been for having been intimate with Jon Bongiovi for two years. Part of me felt I knew Jonathan. And although that is obviously not true at all, I think what was the case was that I knew myself, in the company of someone like Jonathan. I was familiar with this wave of emotions and love being drawn out of me. I could stand the heat. And I could probably stand it a lot better than the girls who had limited their adoration and their relationships to the boys they met in real life. Which brings me to the second aspect of why I believe the Bon Jovi concert was directly linked to my relationship with Jonathan; It had boosted my self-esteem and my market value. A 16 year old girl, attending a concert from the biggest rock band of the eighties? On the other side of the country, on a school night? That was pretty next level. Something which Jonathan, who was a musician himself, had understood very well. Unfortunately for me, we did not lose our virginity but we did have an amazing time. That concert turned out to be the best investment in my sex life, I ever made. No wonder buying a Bon Jovi ticket for this summer, gave me goosebumps. It is a ticket to a concert, an adventure, and an entire new level of being.

<3LSHAn Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Start 30 day sabbatical

A boyfriend like Jon Bongiovi
is part of my new book;Playing no. Diary of submissive non-consent fantasies Which I m currently writing offline and which has brought me back to the earliest beginnings of my sex life.
I m having a 30 day sabbatical.And when I return I will have my four books ready:1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-20182. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman4. Blote Kont- verhalen over mannen, macht en dagjes uit (Dutch)
and
5. Playing no. Diary of submissive non-consent fantasiesThe best way to receive updates on when these books are ready is to follow this blog. The subscription button is somewhere on this page, probably on the right.